Hello everyone, Jess here. To all those that celebrate, a very Merry Christmas to you! I hope you don’t mind that I actually made this recipe a few days back. As of this moment, I’m probably trying to put a set of batteries into a preschooler toy or something. Either that, or I’m on my way to a celebration with the folks with Winter CSA blueberry pie in hand! Hope your day is merry and bright, wherever it takes you.
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I just love this photo of the boys picking blueberries with Nan. Though Nan’s legs aren’t what they used to be, she still gets out there in the heat and picks away!
Now is the time when I begin to pay homage to the harbingers of food preservation, particularly the inventor of the chest freezer. Those days of berries in our share boxes and picking twenty-something pounds of blueberries seem so long ago now that the colder weather is upon us, but thanks to the chest freezer, these beauties are right here and right now!
Here’s a little digression, but please bear with me for a moment… My five year-old is really into Pokemon right now. He walks around clutching his Pokemon encyclopedia, and is quickly memorizing what each of the hundreds of mythical little creatures “evolve” into. (For those unaware as I was, Pokemon evolve from one form to another as they gain experience during battles.)
Why am I mentioning all this about Pokemon? Well tonight after whipping up this blueberry concoction, Ben took a look and a taste before saying that the blueberries had “evolved” (into blueberry sauce!) A great discussion ensued highlighting the parallels between training Pokemon and cooking. When we cook, we hope to use our experience to see an evolution of the ingredients. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Sometimes it is a wonderful game, and other times, more of a battle, but always an experience!
Back to our featured ingredient. Blueberries are stupendous as-is, but if you hit the point where you want to mix it up, this is a great way to do it!
My Nan had brought over a simple cheesecake for dessert, so whipping up this sauce seemed serendipitous. We all had a plating contest. Which plate is your favorite?
I couldn’t hold out for the winner, I dug right in.
Yup, this is summertime back on my plate.